Tadpole
by peace and joyce
Summary: The life of the young Dolores Umbridge.
1. Chapter 1

One autumn's day, a Muggle single mother of six was cruelly murdered by a moralizing hypocrite when his practical joke backfired.

The victim's eldest daughter, a witch laid a curse on the youngest daughter of the moralizer, spoken in these words:

"Your child, I curse her! Your daughter, I curse her! Your babe in arms, I curse her! Her face shall reflect her soul, she will bear the face of a toad. She will be your burden, she will be your shame. She will bring you nothing but resentment, and give no gift to the world that welcomed her but destruction. All the pain and misery that I have suffered, she will deliver in suffering to the world hundredfold. Every tear that I and my brothers and sisters have shed, she will be pay back in the blood of innocent children. She will hunger not for bread of life but the food of evil, she will hunger for power and be never sated.

And henceforth her name, will be **Dolores Jane Umbridge**."


	2. Chapter 2

The mantel clock chimed seven times, for seven o'clock, and Mrs Umbridge was laying the table by magic. The candles lit themselves, the napkins (cloth not paper thank you very much!) and the cats groomed themselves on the china plates.

Like silken butterflies the two eldest Umbridge daughters fluttered in. Elizabeth wore a dress of white, Dilys a dress of blue. Smiles graced their lovely faces as they chatted and lounged. Jane, the third girl, had finished painting and came in with bluish fingers stained with purple at the nails. Hastily she washed at the sink, and for lack of a hand towel (and the sign of her father entering the room) she made do simply with wiping her now clean wet fingers on the hem of her peach-coloured dress. She had made a good job of removing all traces of paint, except at her nails which were still purple. She slipped into her seat just in time for dinner to be served.

Dolores, the youngest and most awkward of the Umbridge girls, came in late and paused, breathless before coughing loudly.

Her mother sighed with an expression of martyrdom. "Dolores, I wish you wouldn't do that. A true lady clears her throat as so: _hem hem_."

"Sorry Mother." Said Dolores bashfully, realising to her horror that she had not hidden the book she was holding. Discreetly she hid behind her back and prayed that it would not be discovered.

Her Father looked her up and down with derision. "Dolores I wish you wouldn't wear that hideous green pinafore, you look like a toad." Umbridge felt stung. It was the one item of clothing she had ever chosen for herself.

"She _is _a toad," murmured Dilys and Elizabeth sputtered with laughter. Umbridge looked to her mother expectantly, awaiting a word in her defence. None came.

More was still to come as her father caught sight of the corner of her book sticking out from behind her waist. He strode over and snatched it out of her hands.

"'Careers for witches in the Ministry'?!" he exclaimed angrily and hit her hard around the head with the book. Reeling slightly, Dolores took her place silently beside Jane, tears stinging her eyes.

"No daughter of mine will have a career. Are you such an ungrateful girl that the money your mother and I have put aside for you isn't enough for you? Do you _want _more? Your sisters aren't so greedy. Your sisters are glad of what they have. You disgrace them with your lack of refinement, you bring disgrace on this family."

"Don't make such a racket, darling," sighed her mother.

"You agree with me! Don't deny it!"

"She'll never get a husband" said his wife finally. "That face will see to it. May as well give her a job and let her support herself. She's not fit for anything else."

Eager to change the subject, Jane struck up a conversation with Elizabeth and gradually the family forgot Dolores sitting staring at her food, too ashamed to eat.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a clammy autumn day, and having been rained on the previous night the garden was soggy.

However this did not deter Jane Umbridge from setting up her tripod and easel in the garden in true pioneer fashion. Fascinated, her younger sister by two years, Dolores watched over her shoulder.

"How can you have such _patience_?" she said in admiration. Jane laughed. "Dear sister, one day you will find a passion and then you will be willing to go to the ends of the earth for it."

Dolores traced patterns in the mud.

"I don't think I have found my passion yet."

"Why not draw inspiration from our sisters. Perhaps children, like Elizabeth?"

Dolores snorted. "No. Children means little girls who won't play with me, or look me up and down like I'm worthless. Children means little boys who won't listen to me but pull faces and call me a toad. No I don't think I like children."

"Then perhaps books- like me?"

Dolores brow furrowed. "I thought you liked painting?"

"You can have more than one passion."

Neither spoke for a while, and Dolores thought hard about what Jane had said.

"I quite like books, I suppose. I quite like books filled with facts that are easy to memorise. Lists are nice, and rules- like the kind you get science that are never changed or broken. I don't like exceptions to rules, they make things so confusing.

But I think I like career books best of all. Ones that tell you how to _get _somewhere, especially ones about the Ministry. When I read them, they take me to a place better than any in a fantasy romance like those Dilys likes. They take me to a real heaven, a real place where I could belong. It's like seeing footsteps on a path that leads ahead of me."

Jane listened quietly and considerately, glad for her sister to show some enthusiasm in something for once.

"Well, maybe you will get somewhere. Tell you what" she smiled cheekily "_I'll _be Minister for Magic, like Artemisia Lufkin in this new book I'm reading- and you can be my secretary."

Dolores' face darkened and left to her feet.

"But I won't get anywhere stuck her! I hate this stupid house!"

Jane looked hurt.

"But we're your family."

"Then I hate family! But nobody wants me here. It's like I'm diseased. Don't you see the way Mother looks at me with pity? Don't you see how Dilys sneers at me, how Elizabeth laughs at me? Don't you see how Father _hates _me?"

"I want you," said Jane quietly, but Dolores forgot this comment for a long time in her anger.

"When I'm big and grown up nobody's going to tell me what to do. I'll say what's what; I'll decide for myself what's right and wrong. And I'll show those horrid people out there just how it feels to be picked on. They'll feel what it's like for me all these years. "

She turned her back on Jane, childish tears threatening to skate her pallid cheek.

"Where are you going?"

"Running away." Said Dolores in a hurt voice.

Silently, Jane packed up her easel and followed her.


	4. Chapter 4

It was cold in the forest and dark too. Dolores shivered and tugged at her fluffy pullover, wishing she'd brought something more substantial. She could hear the sound of hooves in the distance and it frightened her.

"There you are!" Beaming and breathless, Jane came in, heaving her painting gear. "I wish you wouldn't walk so fast, you know you've always been healthier than me."

"What are you doing here?" asked Dolores incredulously.

"Painting" said Jane, and then she laughed at Dolores' face. "Nah, course not. Eyesight's not good enough in this light. No, somebody's got to make sure you don't go completely off the hook."

"Thanks for coming" Dolores was touched.

"Besides, there are centaurs in this area and I know they scare you."

"It's the hooves and they always look so angry."

"They have reason to be. Anyway, you shouldn't be scared of them; they're a bit like us really."

Gently, she put her things down and wrapped her arms around her younger sister.

"Come back, Dolly" she said sweetly. "I need you. You're the only reason my bedroom's tidy. Come back home with me."

Dolores softened and relented. If anything, the cold was getting to her chest. "Ok."

The two sisters stood up, leaning on each other and began to leave the forest.

But they found their path blocked. Two centaurs, their bows loaded, stood in the way.

"I've told you before, Nessus, we have to be harder on people invading _our _territory!"

"What do you mean _your _territory?" said Dolores defiantly. "We're not doing anything wrong being here. I'd let you stand on my garden even though you'd take up lots more room."

"They're just foals, Nessus."

"And we're just proud centaurs! This is _our _territory, so go away little girl and take your frog with you."

Jane's face hardened and she took a determined step forward, between the centaurs that towered over her and her even shorter sister.

"Don't call my sister a frog."

"Well don't assume I'm some pretty horse-"

"I didn't assume. Just because I'm a human doesn't make me a bad person. Just because one person was nasty to you doesn't mean everyone is. And you're bigoted and silly if you think that because I'm a witch I'm stupid or inferior to you. Because I'm not and I'm not afraid to tell you that I'm not."

And then she took another step forward.

Nessus' companion had been alert to any sign of movement, anything that might be taken as a threat, and at Jane's step forward he panicked and reared up. His hoof struck the side of Jane's head and she collapsed to Umbridge's horror as the centaurs rode away.

"Jane! Jane, are you alright?"

"I'm fine" she said weakly, although her head was bleeding and her voice thin and reedy. Umbridge stood up to fetch help by Jane's shaky hand caught her sleeve.

"Dolly- don't go. Stay a bit longer. Stay with me." Dolly obeyed her sister's request and held her gently by the shoulder.

"You're going to be fine Jane. You will" Dolly said through gritted teeth. Jane smiled back, and umbrage of the little girl who painted returned.

"I know. We're all going to be fine, in the end. Dolly- have you found your passion yet?"

"Yes" said Umbridge fiercely. "To eradicate the filth that did this to you. They'll pay; they'll all pay for taking you away from me."

Jane did not have the strength to argue but gave a world weary sigh, tiring of life fast.

"I'll take your name as mine" said Umbridge "so you'll always be with me to remind me of what I have to do."

"Dolores Jane Umbridge" said Jane quietly as if in a dream. "You'll make that name famous, I know. Of all of us, it'll be you they remember."

Dolores leaned over her sister and kissed her forehead, which was cooling rapidly.

"Dolly, please. Open that case by my easel and bring out the drawing that I've been working on."

The tone indicated that this was a final request. Her hands steady, Umbridge opened the case and brought a pencil drawing of a girl, smiling as she stroked a large white cat on her lap.

"Show it to me." Jane heaved herself up slightly, thought the effort cost her and sat stroking the unfinished drawing, her light fingers tracing the outline of the cat until they stopped moving.

Dolores watching her sister slowly grow stiller until she moved no more. No tears, no wails, but for the first time in her life Dolores Umbridge was rendered speechless as her sister died by her side.

She took the drawing out of the girl's dead fingers and looked at it, looked at herself holding the cat in her arms.

And drawn in the eye of love, the face of Dolores Umbridge did not seem very ugly after all.


	5. Chapter 5

For Dolores the death of Jane was not closed by the funeral. For a while after Umbridge would catch a smile, hear a laugh and turn in expectation only to be disappointed. Nothing would bring Jane back.

Dolores was alone when Dilys came into the now empty bedroom.

"Want to know a secret?" Dolores nodded, surprised that she was included in the gossip for a change.

Dilys eyes glinted. "I overheard Mother and Father. Mother said that you're cursed!"

Dolores felt sick and shook her head tears threatening.

"Not true, not true- can't be true! That's- that's a horrid thing to say!"

Dilys shrugged. "It is so true. Father quarrelled with a Muggle born so she cursed you so that you'd always be ugly and nobody would like you."

Dolores thought, puzzled. "So... all those years I thought it was my fault. And a muggle-born started it all."

"Ya huh. So you see" Dilys leaned over, her curls bouncing and eyes shining feverishly. "If that Muggle born hadn't cursed you, then you wouldn't be the way you are, and then you wouldn't have run away and then Jane wouldn't have died. So you see, it's all the Muggle-born's fault."

_All the Muggleborns fault. I'm get them back too. They can feel how I've missed my sister._

"Go away Dilys. I want to be by myself" her sister shrugged, and left Dolores crestfallen sitting on the bed.

"Everybody expects me to turn out bad. I guess then I may as well prove them right. Why be what the world sees as good when they all see me as bad anyway? I'll chalk my own path and go alone."

_9 Years Later_

"Dolores Jane Umbridge?"

At the word Jane Umbridge turned and rose out of the seat she had occupied in the waiting room.

"I'm your mentor, Carmen. I'm here to help you in your career at the Ministry, give advice and whatnot. By the way, you seem very young.

Dolores gave a breathless laugh. "I'm nineteen."

"Don't you think you should try something else first? Work experience and the like? Travel, see the world?"

Umbridge shook her head. "No, the Ministry is the way for me." Carmen brushed it off carelessly.

"OK, if you say so. You want to be a Ministerial secretary, I understand?"

"That's right."

"Well, judging by your CV (she brandished a pink file) your record is not inconsiderable. You show unusual devotion to rules as a child, and you have proven to be hardworking, especially in your coursework. However you must understand you are entering an extremely competitive field. Not everyone will be your friend. You will have to fight and push to get where you can. Please understand that you can't please everyone and don't be afraid to step on toes. Clear?"

"Absolutely" Dolores' eyes glassed over at the sound of the Ministry. "You have my full attention in anything that will further my career."

"Good. First things first. Your wardrobe: this " she pointed to Dolores' green robes. "Will never do. It's so dark it is almost black. Everyone in the Ministry wears black or dark blue. If you want to be noticed you need bright colours: purple, yellow, red, pink. Choose any of those colours and you have a half chance of being memorable.

"Secondly. Your hair. It sounds odd- Millicent Bagnold is a woman of course, but her Ministry is not conducive to witches. It's very much a Boy's Club. Your hair should be short, you need to be organized and busy. Or at least, look organized and busy. However, you need to look presentable and short hair can look scruffy if not cared for. Perhaps a perm? Short curls?

"Thirdly and most importantly, understand this. You like what the Minister likes. If the Minister scorns someone you scorn them. If the Minister likes them you sing their praises. You spurn no device. What the Ministry wants, the Ministry gets. Got it?"

Dolores' eyes brightened, her heart beat faster and she listened to Carmen like every word the woman spoke was a Galleon that she could collect for good attention.

"Got it."


	6. Chapter 6

"Ah, Dolores."

Umbridge smiled as she entered the office of Theodore Higwich, her "friend" (he had lots of power) who was a key administrator in all things secret service and a thoroughly nasty piece of work.

"As you know, you're the next Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts next year." Umbridge gritted her teeth. She had no wish to teach children as she had wish to be buried alive. Oh well, she thought. That's something I'll have in common with my students.

"Thought it best to put you on your guard. Don't forget these kids are the most dangerous part of the wizarding world. When –if- they grow up, they're also the biggest threat to your job security, especially if they don't like you."

Umbridge gulped. Higwich had just spoken her deepest fears, which must mean they were real.

"Of course, most Dark wizards learn their trade, ironically enough, in those classes. If you know how to defeat a Dark creature, you learn how to handle it. The best way to defend is to attack. You know this as well as I, Dolores. To protect your own position you have had to keep certain groups in submission. You tell lies more often than you tell the truth. Not that I'm saying what you're doing is wrong, we are all economical with the truth, you are downright stingy. It's the way our government works."

Umbridge began to speak, choosing her words carefully. "I don't want those children growing up thinking that violence is the way to handle things, especially against the Ministry. I know perfectly well how to get my way without getting _my_ wand out."

Higwich nodded approvingly. "And if you let those children get their wands out in class, who is to say they won't simultaneously turn on you?"

Umbridge quivered. She had never been a competent duellist, and 20 teenagers would be too much to handle.

"You can be sure Dumbledore will care more about the children than you, Dolores" he said poisonously. "Best to watch your back around those blighters. Here, I've invented something to help you in this."

He brought out what looked like a normal quill with a strangely sharp point and gave it to her. Frowning, she made a small scribble on a scrap of paper and yelped in pain.

"I call it a Blood Quill. Should make sure those kids pay attention to what you tell them."

"Are you sure-"

"Dolores." Higwich said finally. "Do you want the Ministry's interests at Hogwarts to be successful or not?"

The Forbidden Forest was even darker and colder at night. Umbridge shivered and jumped when she thought, to her horror, that she could hear centaurs' hooves in the distance.

Her anti-centaur legislation made her feel safer behind a desk, but meeting actual centaurs and knowing that they knew exactly who she was- and with only two entirely unhelpful teenagers to help-.

I have a wand, was her only comfort. Jane had left her wand at home when she had followed her wandless sister in the Forest, but Dolores had a wand now and was determined to use it.

_"No, somebody's got to make sure you don't go completely off the hook."_

_"Besides, there are centaurs in this area and I know they scare you."_

_"It's the hooves and they always look so angry."_

_"They have reason to be."_

_"Come back, Dolly"_.

_"Come back home with me."_

I hate Hermione Granger, Dolores thought angrily. She's everything Jane was.

Throughout a tense conversation with the centaurs, her heart was thumping in her chest.

Can't hurt me, can't hurt me, I'm a Ministry employee you can't hurt me...

The centaur loaded his bow and directed his arrow directly at her head...

It was Jane all over again. But this time, Umbridge was even more frightened- and she had a wand...

After the fall of the Ministry, Theodore Higwich was promoted to new head of the Auror Office and celebrated by arresting its most competent members: Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Proudfoot and several others.

Under orders from the Minister himself, Umbridge was once again summoned to his office.

"Dolores! The new Minister is delighted by the sterling work you have produced."

Umbridge blushed delightedly.

"Really?"

"Really. You are to be given a great honour; Head of the Muggle-born Commission."

Umbridge was puzzled: her contract with Voldemort had been specific. In exchange for handing over Rufus Scrimgeour, she was stay in her old job of Senior Undersecretary. She was to stay safe.

"I thought-"

"What an opportunity. You should go down on your knees and thank your lucky stars for this chance. Why the hesitation, Dolores?" His eyes narrowed dangerously. "I thought you hated Muggle-borns."

"I do." That was not a lie; she still had a passionate hatred for Muggle borns. They were responsible for her moral and mental decline, they were responsible for all her problems full stop and the centaurs and all their half-breed lot. The idea that she may have speeded up this decline or be at least partially responsible for her previous crimes of humanity did not occur to her.

(**A.N. her opinion. Not mine!)**

But to round them up... send them to prison... for something that wasn't even true... wasn't that just going a little bit too far?

"What are you waiting for? Are you not grateful for this brilliant offer? You will have one of the largest salaries in the Ministry, your own department, maybe even your _own _secretary. Isn't that wonderful?"

Umbridge nodded her head. Across a twenty year career in the Ministry, she had learned to value an offer for what it was worth. It was an instinctive thing now. And this offer was tempting...

"Somebody has to do it. If you don't act now, someone else will get that chance. But I know you won't say no. You will be one of the most important witches in the Ministry, with a chance to get back, to get even with the people you hate. Isn't that what you wanted? What you _always _wanted?"

Again, she nodded. But something in her head was complaining...

"Although of course, if you decline this offer, I understand completely. There is after all a cell in Azkaban which will be just as suitable for you..."

Before she even knew where she was, Umbridge had snatched the quill and signed the contract. She would not go to Azkaban. She would die before she went there, she couldn't stand it there. She would take the offer and make the best of an unpopular job.

And so, the little voice in her head was shut out forever.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN. Last chapter! As the author of How to Really Annoy Dolores Umbridge and The Punishment of Dolores Jane Umbridge, I don't like Umbridge much J**

**This is not intended to make excuses for Umbridge, in this fic I show her as responsible for the crimes of the Muggle Born Registration Commission. She is also the author of anti-Muggle propaganda which was all her own ideas and creations. And hey, if she can wear a Horcrux and be empowered by it she sure isn't a good person.**

**I quite like the idea though, that in the end she was sorry for what she had done.**

_October 2002_

Dolores J. Umbridge, Azkaban Inmate No. 774871.

The pink was gone. As were the curls, the money, the hair bows and the power. Dolores Umbridge was a broken woman, and no Dementor was needed to break her.

They brought a mirror, it was standard procedure for them to bring one once every three weeks, to remind each prisoner who they were and what they looked like. Umbridge had not wanted to see it.

The straight grey hair, the hollowed cheeks, the blank eyes that did not focus. True, Azkaban was more humane than in the time when she had sent in over one thousand muggle borns, but three meals a day had not stopped her decline which was faster by the day.

1,000 muggle borns. 1,000 nightmares; 700 ghosts.

She was 51 years old.

Unwatched by the new guard, who left her alone out of disgust and pity, she brought out a blood quill, smuggled in through the prison and hidden in her grey sleeve. She thought of her last conversation with Higwich.

_"You are arresting me? Higwich!"_

_"You'll be sent to Azkaban, and I can't say I'm sorry for you."_

_"You told me to accept the offer of the job! I swear, if I go to Azkaban, I'm bringing you all in with me, including you!"_

_"You'll do no such thing. I've been questioned and proven innocent of everything. You've no evidence that links me with anything to do with the Commission. Everything you say against me points to your own guilt. Deny what you did, it might help you. Prove you were blackmailed; and we both walk free."_

_"I won't lie. Not any more, it's all true about the Commission, about what I did, that's the horrid thing, it's all true._

_I'm not stooping to your level. I'm pleading guilty."_

_"In exchange for a reduced sentence?"_

_"In exchange for nothing."_

Higwich had made a new life for himself, got married only last week. She was left to bear the full brunt of the blame for the Commission's actions.

As if 700 ghosts weren't blame enough.

Gripping the quill tentatively in her dry fingers, she began to write on the wall of her cell.

She began to write the story of her life.


End file.
